How I Inherited Dracula`s Cat

December 1, 1985|By Bill Kelley, Staff writer

Here is a classic example of what can happen when you try to be a nice guy (and impress your friends) without thinking of the consequences. You wind up living with three cats, one of which belongs to a movie star who resides 5,000 miles away.

It took my girlfriend just over a year to convince me that the only thing missing from our relationship was a cat. She had already managed to transform my bachelor digs into a place where somebody actually lived, and didn`t just stop by to change clothes and throw the day`s newspapers onto the floor. All that was missing from total domesticity was a pet.

``Cats are very low maintenance pets,`` she said calmly. ``You just feed them, they clean themselves, and they use a litter box.``

I had no argument with her there. My family had owned cats and dogs when I was a kid. But as an adult, and a bachelor, I narrowed men who owned cats down to obese, withdrawn psychopaths who lived with their ailing mothers and eventually went on citywide murder sprees; and pasty-faced intellectuals who wore ascots, collected rare books and drank heavily as they carried on one-way conversations with their feline companions.

I fell closer to the latter category. Although I sported a suntan and didn`t own an ascot, I had enough books to stock a library and was already getting a leg up on the drinking.

But two weeks later, we drove to the house of a co-worker whose cat had given birth to a litter. We returned home with a long-haired, orange kitten that we named Hazel (because, although a male, he had huge hazel eyes).

``He`s your cat, kiddo -- you take care of him,`` I said that first night.

Within a month, Hazel and I were inseparable. I took him for rides in my car, carried him around the apartment on my shoulder, and let him sleep in my lap as I read. No one was more amazed at how quickly I fell into the pattern than I.

(Imagine my horror, however, as I began putting on weight. Fortunately, my mother was several states away, living with my father and in perfect health.)

Nine months later, we decided Hazel should have a sister. We purchased a black kitten from a pet store (displayed under the sign ``Generic Kittens -- $19.95``), and named her Pearl.

We also decided it was time to get Hazel neutered. I took him to a veterinarian who advertised bargain rates. He injected our cat with anesthesia, and Hazel instantly dropped dead on the table from a heart attack. All three of us -- including the vet -- were devastated, but I did what I had heard you were supposed to do in such cases: I went out and got another kitten.

Don -- so named by us because his speckled coloring included what looked like a Don Ameche-type mustache -- was the runt of his litter. His feet were so tiny they slipped through the grating of the cage he was kept in. He fit in my shirt pocket. My girlfriend fed him warm milk through an eye dropper for the first two weeks.

In two years, my girlfriend and I parted company, and I returned to a bachelor`s life. With one difference: I had two cats. When people who knew me mostly through my TV column would stop by and ask how such an acerbic guy acquired two cats that he obviously loved, I would shrug, ``I inherited them,`` and leave it at that.

Several months ago, I flew to Los Angeles on a TV press outing. While there, I visited the home of Christopher Lee, a movie actor who is a friend of mine. Lee achieved notoriety in British horror films in the `60s, and was amazed to discover, when he came here in 1974 to promote a James Bond film, The Man with the Golden Gun (in which he played the title role), how popular he was with Americans.

But, after several years in Los Angeles, Christopher and his wife, Gitte, were homesick. When I arrived at their Los Angeles condominium, the living room was crammed with boxes. All but one of their possessions was packed for shipment to England. Perched atop a carton was the lone reject -- the Lees` cat, Renfield, his face rigid with anger and confusion.

Renfield was named for a character in the novel Dracula, who falls under the vampire`s spell, goes mad and crawls about eating insects for the blood they contain. Christopher had played Count Dracula in several British films. When he spied the gray cat catching flies one day, he named him Renfield as a joke.

``We can`t bring him with us, and he knows something`s wrong,`` said Christopher. ``England has a six-month quarantine for pets, and we`re not leaving him in a cage outside the country for half a year. We`re trying to find him a home here.``

``Why don`t you take him, Bill?`` asked Gitte, half-kidding.

``That would go over real big,`` I answered, knowing full well that, when I returned to Florida, I would be sharing a house and expenses with a young woman who, although she adored Don and Pearl, had a history of allergies.